Scotrail under attack again as passengers rage at delays
Fed-up rail passengers turned on Scotrail yesterday after another day of travel chaos with many trains cancelled or jam-packed.
Christmas shoppers were hit by a string of delays and cancellations during one of the busiest weekends of the year.
Many trains were badly overcrowded and social media was inundated with Scotrail customers complaining about the poor service. The beleaguered train operator apologised to passengers and blamed bad weather and staff shortages for the disruption after the introduction of a new winter timetable was blamed for problems over recent weeks.
But Scottish Labour’s transport spokesman Colin Smyth accused the company of failing people with its “thoroughly miserable service”.
He called on Scotrail to suspend the fare increase due to be imposed in January as a “gesture of goodwill”.
He said: “What I have difficulty understanding is why they’re bringing in a new timetable that they’re clearly not prepared for, they haven’t got the staff properly trained and they haven’t got sufficient trains on the track and this is possibly one of their busiest weekends of the year.
“This is the time when people need the trains most, yet we still have performance whereby one in five trains are running late and the trains that do turn up are often